Aminur Nazir Khan, 19, from Robin Hood Gardens has been charged with the murder of Ajmol Alom and the attempted murder of Azime Rob. Khan appeared at Thames Magistrates Court last week for a brief formal hearing, at the end of which the case was referred to the crown court. Khan is expected to appear at the Old Bailey on 19th August, again for a brief formal hearing. A second 19 year old man remains in police custody and is likely to face similar charges.
Why?
How can it happen that a couple of 16 year old lads can be hanging about – in this case, in Spey Street, Poplar – and find that a guy just three years older has come across the East India Dock Road and stabs them?
Just 20 years ago, that part of the East India Dock Road was the scene of many vicious attacks. There was a regular minibus that would turn up in or around Bazely Street and disgorge a dozen white men with baseball bats who would beat the crap out of any Bangla kid unlucky enough to be walking between Tower Hamlets College’s two sites in Poplar High Street and East India Dock Road. But we could explain that. In 1992, the British National Party had received 20% of the vote in a by-election on the Isle of Dogs and they were giving their thugs days out in an area in which people of Bangaldeshi origin were vulnerable because of their colour. Twenty years ago next month, the Party went on to win their first ever UK Council seat in the area. It took a mammoth effort to get that seat back off them, and an even larger and longer effort to put the racist genie back in the bottle (at least for some of the time).
But now members of the Bangladeshi community, which less than a generation ago stood together in the face of attack from outside, is turning in on itself – with this murder fundamentally ascribed (although Ajmol was innocent) to gang issues. It will take more than a single article to work out what is going on, but here are some points to start with.
The (mostly immigrant in origin) Bangla community is 20 years older. Those in their teenage years and early 20s are in-betweeners, neither with strong ties back to communities in Bangladesh, nor properly accepted in a multicultural UK – and different members of that community cope with that in different ways. Gangs are a way of finding acceptance and identity for those who are beginning to step outside the immediate home environment. To get young Banglas out of gangs, there has to be an alternative environment in which young men can find their feet and work out who they are.
There is also a material problem: youth unemployment. A young man who puts a suit on each morning to commute to an office job or who puts overalls on each morning before spending the day in physical labour is much less likely to feel the inclination or have the energy to roam the streets at nights and weekends building up some territorial gang identity.
These two phenomena are manifested at a local and a national level, and solutions must be found at both levels too, by the political parties which have the power to deal with these problems or make them worst – of which, more on another day. Today we mourn; but tomorrow we shall seek change.